Hubble's law and the expansion of space

Observations of distant galaxies and quasars show that these objects are redshiftedthe light emitted from them has been shifted to longer wavelengths. This can be seen by taking a frequency spectrum of an object and matching the spectroscopic pattern of emission lines or absorption lines corresponding to atoms of the chemical elements interacting with the light. These redshifts are uniformly isotropic, distributed evenly among the observed objects in all directions. If the redshift is interpreted as a Doppler shift, the recessional velocity of the object can be calculated. For some galaxies, it is possible to estimate distances via the cosmic distance ladder. When the recessional velocities are plotted against these distances, a linear relationship known as Hubble's law is observed:[16] v = H0D, where

v is the recessional velocity of the galaxy or other distant object, D is the comoving distance to the object, and H0 is Hubble's constant, measured to be 70.4 +1.3 1.4 km/s/Mpc by the WMAP probe.[32]

Hubble's law has two possible explanations. Either we are at the center of an explosion of galaxieswhich is untenable given the Copernican principleor the Universe is uniformly expanding everywhere. This universal expansion was predicted from general relativity by Alexander Friedmann in 1922[43] and Georges Lematre in 1927,[44] well before Hubble made his 1929 analysis and observations, and it remains the cornerstone of the Big Bang theory as developed by Friedmann, Lematre, Robertson, and Walker. The theory requires the relation v = HD to hold at all times, where D is the comoving distance, v is the recessional velocity, and v, H, and D vary as the Universe expands (hence we write H0 to denote the present-day Hubble "constant"). For distances much smaller than the size of the observable Universe, the Hubble redshift can be thought of as the Doppler shift corresponding to the recession velocity v. However, the redshift is not a true Doppler shift, but rather the result of the expansion of the Universe between the time the light was emitted and the time that it was detected.[68] That space is undergoing metric expansion is shown by direct observational evidence of the Cosmological principle and the Copernican principle, which together with Hubble's law have no other explanation. Astronomical redshifts are extremely isotropic and homogenous,[16] supporting the Cosmological principle that the Universe looks the same

in all directions, along with much other evidence. If the redshifts were the result of an explosion from a center distant from us, they would not be so similar in different directions. Measurements of the effects of the cosmic microwave background radiation on the dynamics of distant astrophysical systems in 2000 proved the Copernican principle, that, on a cosmological scale, the Earth is not in a central position.[69] Radiation from the Big Bang was demonstrably warmer at earlier times throughout the Universe. Uniform cooling of the cosmic microwave background over billions of years is explainable only if the Universe is experiencing a metric expansion, and excludes the possibility that we are near the unique center of an explosion.

Cosmic microwave background radiation

Main article: Cosmic microwave background radiation

9 year WMAP image of the cosmic microwave background radiation (2012).[22][70] The radiation is isotropic to roughly one part in 100,000.[71] In 1964 Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson serendipitously discovered the cosmic background radiation, an omnidirectional signal in the microwave band.[60] Their discovery provided substantial confirmation of the general CMB predictions: the radiation was found to be consistent with an almost perfect black body spectrum in all directions; this spectrum has been redshifted by the expansion of the universe, and today corresponds to approximately 2.725 K. This tipped the balance of evidence in favor of the Big Bang model, and Penzias and Wilson were awarded a Nobel Prize in 1978. The surface of last scattering corresponding to emission of the CMB occurs shortly after recombination, the epoch when neutral hydrogen becomes stable. Prior to this, the universe comprised a hot dense photon-baryon plasma sea where photons were quickly scattered from free charged particles. Peaking at around 37214 kyr,[31] the mean free path for a photon becomes long enough to reach the present day and the universe becomes transparent.

The cosmic microwave background spectrum measured by the FIRAS instrument on the COBE satellite is the most-precisely measured black body spectrum in nature.[72] The data points and error bars on this graph are obscured by the theoretical curve. In 1989 NASA launched the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite (COBE). Its findings were consistent with predictions regarding the CMB, finding a residual temperature of 2.726 K (more recent measurements have revised this figure down slightly to 2.725 K) and providing the first evidence for fluctuations (anisotropies) in the CMB, at a level of about one part in 105.[61] John C. Mather and George Smoot were awarded the Nobel Prize for their leadership in this work. During the following decade, CMB anisotropies were further investigated by a large number of ground-based and balloon experiments. In 20002001 several experiments, most notably BOOMERanG, found the shape of the Universe to be spatially almost flat by measuring the typical angular size (the size on the sky) of the anisotropies. In early 2003 the first results of the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) were released, yielding what were at the time the most accurate values for some of the cosmological parameters. The results disproved several specific cosmic inflation models, but are consistent with the inflation theory in general.[62] The Planck space probe was launched in May 2009. Other ground and balloon based cosmic microwave background experiments are ongoing.

Abundance of primordial elements

Main article: Big Bang nucleosynthesis Using the Big Bang model it is possible to calculate the concentration of helium-4, helium-3, deuterium, and lithium-7 in the Universe as ratios to the amount of ordinary hydrogen.[29] The relative abundances depend on a single parameter, the ratio of photons to baryons. This value can be calculated independently from the detailed structure of CMB fluctuations. The ratios predicted (by mass, not by number) are about 0.25 for 4He/H, about 103 for 2H/H, about 104 for 3He/H and about 109 for 7Li/H.[29] The measured abundances all agree at least roughly with those predicted from a single value of the baryon-to-photon ratio. The agreement is excellent for deuterium, close but formally discrepant for 4He, and off by a factor of two 7Li; in the latter two cases there

are substantial systematic uncertainties. Nonetheless, the general consistency with abundances predicted by Big Bang nucleosynthesis is strong evidence for the Big Bang, as the theory is the only known explanation for the relative abundances of light elements, and it is virtually impossible to "tune" the Big Bang to produce much more or less than 2030% helium.[73] Indeed there is no obvious reason outside of the Big Bang that, for example, the young Universe (i.e., before star formation, as determined by studying matter supposedly free of stellar nucleosynthesis products) should have more helium than deuterium or more deuterium than 3He, and in constant ratios, too.